1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector with an improved terminal retaining system.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional electrical connector, which has a high-profiled housing and a plurality of terminals consisting of signal terminals and grounding terminals, is used to provide an electrical connection between a mother board and a cable via the connector. In high speed and high density condition, a secure and effective grounding circuit is especially important to maintain signal integrity. Thus, grounding terminals are designed to firstly contact a complement connector when mating. Referring to U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,350,134 and 6,036,549, each of them shows an electrical connector including a housing. The housing defines a plurality of slots to receive a plurality of terminals, which lie alongside one another in the plug-in direction. The terminals generally include electrical signal terminals and ground terminals, wherein the ground terminals are designed to match mating connector prior to the signal terminals.
In order to retain terminals in a housing, referring to U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,171, it disclosed that a high density electrical connector comprises an insulative housing, a number of terminals and a spacer. The housing comprises a body having a number of passageways receiving the terminals therein. The spacer is attached to the housing and comprises a first surface and a second surface. Two rows of terminal positioning holes are disposed in each surface of the spacer. The tail of each terminal is received in corresponding hole of the spacer to properly position in the electrical connector.
However, the conventional connector presents the following problems. The spacer increases the cost of the connector, and assembling difficulty of the connector. Furthermore, the connector needs two different types of terminals for functioning as the signal terminals and grounding terminals. This increases the inventory cost and material and die cost for manufacturing the terminals. Hence, an improved connector is provided to resolve the problems of the prior art.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector having a terminal positioning structure which can easily and securely retain terminals of the connector in position.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector with grounding terminals engaging a complement connector first to improve electrical performance of the connector.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector using one type of terminals functioning as both signal terminals and grounding terminals to reduce cost of the connector.
In order to achieve the objects set forth, an electrical connector of the present invention is used for mating a complementary connector. The electrical connector comprises an insulative housing and a plurality of signal and grounding terminals received in the housing and each having an identical structure. The housing defines a main body, a tongue extending forwardly from the main body along a mating direction of the connector, a platform extending from the main body opposite to the tongue, and a leading arm extending from the main body in the mating direction. The tongue has first terminal passageways and second terminal passageways, wherein front ends of the first terminal passageways are behind front ends of the second terminals passageways. The platform defines first grooves corresponding to the first terminals passageways and second grooves corresponding to the second terminals passageways, wherein the second grooves are deeper than the first grooves. The signal terminals are received in the first passageways and the first grooves, while the grounding terminals are received in the second passageways and the second grooves. Thus, when the electrical connector mates with the complementary connector, the grounding terminals engage with the complementary connector first prior to the signal terminals.